The Morning Swim Show, Sept. 20, 2011: Whitney Myers Ready to Represent USA At Pan-American Games

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 20. WHITNEY Myers has been busy the past few weeks, qualifying for the Pan-American Games team and getting married, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show she talks about both occasions.

Making the 2011 Pan Am team marks Myers' first international team since 2007, and she talks about getting through the rough patches in the years between, sticking to her game plan and training for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Jeff Commings: This is the Morning Swim Show for Tuesday, September 20th, 2011. I'm Jeff Commings and on today show in the FINIS monitor we'll talk to Whitney Myers. Whitney is getting ready to travel to Mexico in a few weeks for the Pan American Games, where she'll swim the 200 IM. And Whitney joins us right now from Corona Del Mar, California. Hi, Whitney, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Whitney Myers: Good, Jeff. Thank you for having me.

Jeff Commings: Well, before we talk about swimming, congratulations on your wedding. As most people may have known by now, you're married to your longtime boyfriend, Simon Burnett. And I think I speak for many viewers when I say it was a long time coming.

Whitney Myers: Yes, it was. We started dating my sophomore year of college, so I think it's been seven years now. But we're both really feel excited about it

.Jeff Commings: And you live in Southern California while Simon is still Tucson. I can't imagine it's easy being newlyweds and being so far apart.

Whitney Myers: Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer but we're both kind of doing what we need to do to try to accomplish our goals and this is our last year of swimming for both of us so if that meant just being apart for the first year of marriage, that was something we're willing to do.

Jeff Commings: Yeah, a very busy August. Besides getting married, you swam at U.S. Nationals where you qualified for the Pan American Games team. This is your first international team, I believe, since the 2007 Worlds, correct?

Whitney Myers: Correct. I know.

Jeff Commings: How does it feel to be representing the United States again?

Whitney Myers: I'm really, really excited. I've had a lot of ups and a lot of downs in my career. More downs in the past few years. So I think this is a great step in the right direction and it will be awesome to represent the U.S. again. And I think it will be able a great meet.

Jeff Commings: Well, you talked about a lot of the ups and downs that you had, how did you get through a lot of those down parts in your career to kind of keep focused?

Whitney Myers: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it's been really hard to put so much time and effort and, you know, work into it and not see results that I was used to seeing. But I think the biggest thing I've done is obviously keep my head up, but just keep trying new things and crossing things of the list, like the whole less is more philosophy I thought would work and it did it quite work, so going back to the old school of maybe putting a little bit more time and energy spent in the water and, hopefully, I'll see it pay off again.

Jeff Commings: So there have been few adjustments in the coaching staff there at Fullerton. How has your training evolved with all that transition?

Whitney Myers: Yeah, I mean, not only have I had, you know, two or three different coaches in the past year and a half since I've been in California, but their coaching and style and philosophy about swimming are both very different. Sean Hutchison, who I moved out to California to swim for, is more like technique and kind of has a new style of coaching and training that less is more type mindset. Whereas, now I'm training with Jon Urbanchek and Alex Braunfeld and they are a little bit more old school and the yardage is definitely getting bounced back up and it's just an adjustment that I've had to make, and I'm just really trying to buy into whatever program the coach that I'm working under is trying to make me work with.

Jeff Commings: Yeah, when you said you were with Jon Urbancheck, he is definitely not a "less is more" type of coach.

Whitney Myers: No, he is not.

Jeff Commings: So who do you train with regularly out there?

Whitney Myers: We have kind of two groups, more of like a freestyle group, and that would be kind of like more distance and open water swimmers. And then we have kinda an IM and stroke group and in that group is Katie Hoff and Robert Margalis and Tyler Clary, and then Ed Moses recently joined our team in the past few weeks. And so we have a pretty good IM group going.

Jeff Commings: Now, as someone who specializes in the IM, the 200 IM is your best event, do you work on every stroke everyday or will you go a couple days without, say, doing any breaststroke at all?

Whitney Myers: Yeah, breaststroke is definitely my weakest stroke so I try to, at least, to get some breaststroke in everyday because I need to improve it still. But there are some days where I'll just do freestyle instead and just really work on my, like, aerobic endurance. So, yeah, I guess mostly medley work but obviously not forgetting to work on my strengths as well like freestyle and butterfly. Jeff Commings: Now, the 2:10.11 that you did at the Pan Pacs in 2006 still stands out to me as one of those jaw-dropping swims I'll never forget. Do you feel that you have another 2:10 in you, which obviously is what it's going to take to make the Olympic team in 200 IM?

Whitney Myers: Yeah, I think, you know, that's one thing that has really weighing since 2006, since I went that time. I really believe that, like, swims are not flukes, like, I have the same body, I'm the same person, why can't I go 2:10 or faster. There's in my mind just no reason. I'm just trying to learn what the best way to train my body is now that I'm five years older than I was in 2006. And it's really great that that was such an outstanding swim and that it actually is still competitive even though, you know, it's put up a few years ago.

Jeff Commings: I would imagine Pan Am in a few weeks is gonna be a good test to see how the training is going. Are you gonna be fully tapered for the meet?

Whitney Myers: Well, I was on my honeymoon when I got the e-mail saying that I was invited to join the meet. So I had a bit of a break after Nationals, probably, like, two weeks off. And that only left about, you know, eight to ten weeks to get some good training in. So, you know, not much time to really get broken down and build back up for a taper but, yes, I'll be fully tapered even though I'll probably only, you know, need a few day's rest, whereas, I wouldn't –. I would rest more for a full season.

Jeff Commings: I know that you also do the 100 fly. Besides the 100 fly, 200 IM, are you swimming anything else at Trials?

Whitney Myers: Well, I would love to swim the 200 freestyle but, unfortunately, it's the same day as the 200 IM, and I cannot do that double. So, I mean, well, I guess keep training for freestyles and see how the season plays out, you know, in the next ten months. But I will swim the 100 freestyle as well.

Jeff Commings: There you go, relay possibilities.

Whitney Myers: Definitely.

Jeff Commings: Sixth place is just as good as first in that 100 free.

Whitney Myers: Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, freestyle events are usually stacked. So you need six places to try to make the team in those events.

Jeff Commings: I understand you're also thinking about graduate school. What's the plan for that?

Whitney Myers: I am. I wanna be a physician's assistant, so I actually applied — I submitted my application last week which I was really excited to finally get that. And then I applied to nine different schools all over the country. I'm from Ohio so I applied some schools in Midwest and even back east as far as, like, Boston and New York, as well as some California schools.

Jeff Commings: Well, speaking of Ohio, one of the teams you swam for briefly was Cincinnati Marlins and just this past weekend they'd celebrate their 50th anniversary. Now, again, you only swam there for a brief time, but what was it like swimming for such a historic team?

Whitney Myers: Yeah, it is a very historic team, has had a lot of great swimmers like Nate Dusing, Mary T., and it was — I mean, I was only there for probably three or four months but it's definitely like the staple team in the area in Cincinnati and even like the state of Ohio. It's very well respected and I'm proud to say that I was a Marlin even though it was only for short time.

Jeff Commings: Your name has been thrown around the media a lot lately because of the finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year were just named. And your former Arizona teammate Annie Chandler is now finalist, and if she wins she'll be the fourth Arizona female swimmer to win. And you were the first. I mean, obviously, there's something really good that's going on with that Arizona women's team. What is it about the team that cultivates such great women?

Whitney Myers: It's pretty crazy to think that there could possibly be four Arizona swimmers winning that award because to me it's even better than the Heisman Trophy in opinion just because it encompasses the whole person, not just your athletic accomplishments, but what you do in the classroom and in the community and your leadership in campus involvement. And, honestly, I feel like it goes back to Frank Busch and the culture that he tried to create at the Arizona program. And it's really awesome to be a part of the Arizona swimming legacy and I think Annie definitely deserves that award with great grades and multiple national titles and a lot of service activities. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of other great athletes out there as well but she definitely deserves it.

Jeff Commings: Well, you won in 2007 just, it's — to me I remember hearing about it, seems like yesterday that you got that, I mean, what are your memories of winning that award?

Whitney Myers: Well, the event is hosted in Indianapolis, which is only an hour from my hometown, so my parents got to go, and I remember my dad reading through the bios of the other girls and my dad said, "You know what, you know, I'm really proud of you for being here but you're never gonna win this award, like these girls have 4.0s, and they were multiple sports and did all this great things, like, congrats for being a finalist though." I was like, oh, thanks Dad. And then I won. So it was like really — it was really awesome because there really are some amazing, amazing senior female athletes out there and it was just a really great honor and, obviously, my dad was really supportive of me but knew that the competition was really steep as well. So it was really great.

Jeff Commings: Yeah, that's a great story. Well, you've got more chances to add to your résumé. Pan Ams is next month and, hopefully, we'll see you do really well at Olympic Trials, Whitney. Thanks so much for joining us.

Whitney Myers: Thank you so much for having me.

Jeff Commings: And, again, congratulations on your wedding to Simon.

Whitney Myers: Thank you.

Jeff Commings: All right, that's Whitney Myers, joining us in the FINIS monitor. That's gonna do it for today's show. I'm Jeff Commings. Thanks for watching.
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